Basic H2 Super Organic Concentrate! 1001 uses!!!

I have been told there are 1001 uses for Shaklee's Basic H2 super cleaning concentrate. I know there are many so I thought I would share a list here. If you have more, please share them in the comments! There are several off label uses to Basic H2 but I will cover the main uses here.

If you are not familiar, Basic H2 is like the BEST house hold cleaner on the planet. (In my opinion!!) My parents have been using it since 1975! I think every house hold should have a bottle of this in their house! Especially if you have young children.

It was the very first biodegradable cleaner made and is over 50 years old! It was the first Earth Day product in 1970 and has been "Green" since the beginning, even before people cared about pollution!

Why do I love Basic H2 (and all of Shaklee's Get Clean Cleaners for that matter)?

Because Shaklee Get Clean cleaners are completely safe for my family and the environment. And when I say safe, I mean, if your child or pet accidentally ingested these products, it would not be fatal to them. Or even require a trip the ER! Basic H2 is made from corn and coconut and is completely safe. No toxic fumes what so ever!!! Which means no more headache when cleaning or dry and cracked skin after. You can throw your cleaning gloves away! I have a good friend who is very allergic to nuts, including coconut. But she uses Basic H2 with no problem at all.

Another reason why I love Shaklee's Basic H2 and the other Get Clean cleaners: They are cheap!!! Many people think that green cleaners or organic cleaners means expensive. But with Shaklee, that really is not the case!

One bottle of Basic H2 equals 5824 bottles of the leading window/glass cleaner!!!! Talk about saving money! Basic H2 costs less then a penny per GALLON when you use it as a window cleaner! And it cleans my mirrors and windows better then anything I have ever tried.

Why is it so cheap? Shaklee does not ship water to you. We just send you the cleaning concentrate and you provide your own water. So when you fill a spray bottle with 16 oz of water, you just add 1-2 DROPS of Basic H2 for an awesome window/glass/mirror cleaner!

All purpose cleaning requires 1/4 tsp of H2 to 16 oz of water!

So you get the idea of why it's so cost-effective.

We use Basic H2 every day for different things in the house and it has not once caused any respiratory issues for my 3 year old preemie who was predicted to have asthma. He is a healthy growing little boy who loves to help me clean!

And one of my most favorite reasons for loving Basic H2 is the Many, Many great uses! Here is a short list:

Basic H2 cleans so well that bacteria can't grow. It restores PH and is safe on your skin. And it works!!! Shaklee cleaners work so well! I have written several posts with before and after pics so be sure to search those on my blog.

So THAT is why I truly love this product and think everyone should have a bottle in their home! My very first blog was on how my family de-toxed our home and went from 20 plus cleaners to just THREE shaklee cleaners! you can read that HERE.

Thanks for taking the time to read. If this is interesting to you and you would like to try Shaklee's Basic H2 or other products please contact me for more info and some great specials I have going right now too. Or contact the person who shared this post with you.

Thanks and have a fantastic day!!

~Rebecca~

How I Clean My House Naturally: Part 1 - Basic H2

If you know me, you know that I love to use safe and natural products to clean my house.  I get asked about this a lot and since I haven't blogged about Get Clean in awhile, I thought I would today!

If you have been following my blog, you may be familiar with my very first post about how I de-toxed my house and now use only THREE products to clean it! Today I will start a series of posts sharing the few products that I really love to clean my entire house...

First up - my beloved Basic H2!

I truly love this cleaner for a few great reasons.

1. It is completely safe for my entire family, including my preemie son who was born with lung disease 2 years ago and is prone to respiratory issues. No harmful fumes, phthalates, or BPA to keep our home and the environment healthy. Made from corn and coconut - how cool is that? And it's great because my kids can help me clean too with no worries!

2. It actually WORKS!!! 

Windows, glass, grills, floors, stove tops, ovens, microwaves, dusting, cleaning greasy hands, fruits and veggies, fine fabric, appliances, soaking greasy pots and pans, cars, gum, crayon off of floors or walls or furniture, drain cleaner, in the garden and much more!... And because it cleans so well, it prevents bacteria from growing!

I love how it keeps dust at bay on our dark furniture when I use the all purpose solution with my microfiber cloth. Here is my dresser and mirror, both cleaned with Basic H2. Love the shine without the chemicals and fumes!

And here is a sample of my young artist's work:)

And after using the degreaser solution of Basic H2 along with my washable microfiber sponge. Came off so easily. I also have used this to take crayon off of our kitchen floor, the refrigerator door and living room furniture! Yes, my little guy is the creative one. lol

 How to mix Basic H2:

- window/glass/mirrors: mix 1-2 DROPS into 16 oz sprayer of water  

-General Cleaning: mix 1/4 tsp. into 16 oz sprayer of water

-degreaser: mix 1 1/2 tsp. into 16 oz sprayer of water

I also keep a little in my laundry room to apply directly to spots and stains. Works great!!

Here is a before picture of my preschooler's shirt after he dropped some of a greasy taco on it when we were at a restaurant

I know, I know...a greasy taco and a preschooler with a white shirt? What was I thinking??? 

Basic H2, that's what! :)




Pretty great, huh? I also used Nature Bright, which is a safe alternative to bleach to remove the tough stains. Every time I have washed this shirt since, it seems even whiter and brighter. Love that!

3. Another reason I love this cleaner - It saves us money!!! One 16 oz bottle of Basic H2 equals the cleaning uses of 5,824 bottles of 26 oz Windex!!! Pretty amazing! The window solution is less then a penny per gallon. Gotta love that!

Basic H2's Cleaning Credentials:
Nontoxic
Superconcentrated
Biodegradable Surfactants
Natural
No Phosphates 

Basic H2 has been around for over 50 years now and was the product showcased at the first Earth Day celebration in the 1970s! My mom has been using it for 37 years so it's kind of like family.:)

That's it for this post. I will post Part 2 of my natural cleaning series coming soon  - Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful day!

Rebecca 

Dust, Kitchen Disasters and Crayons! (oh my!)

We moved back to the midwest almost 3 years ago from the west coast, where my husband did his schooling. When we were living in California, we didn't have a ton of money and owned a lot of Ikea furniture. Nothing against Ikea, but I was really looking forward to us settling down and actually having some furniture that we didn't have to put together ourselves! Well, I got my wish when we moved here. I fell in love with our bedroom furniture the minute I saw it.


The rich color of the wood is so beautiful. That is, until we actually got it home and we saw how fast it showed dust! ugh! I tried several products, but they all had a waxy buildup, harsh fumes, and really didn't seem to work well at all. I tried just using a cloth or duster with no product, but all that did was move the dust around the room to resettle back onto the furniture. After we detoxed our home over the summer however, we realized that our favorite Basic H2 organic cleaner was great at dusting. I couldn't believe how well it worked for this. Before, I had to dust just about every day. But with the Basic H2, I just put a little of the window cleaner (1-2 drops to 16 oz. of water) on a cloth and wipe down the furniture. I only dust a few times a month now, if that! It actually repels dust! So cool!

As an experiment, I let the dust really build up on this night stand to try to get a good before picture. Dust is a hard thing to take pictures of! :)
And here is the after once I wiped it down with a little Basic H2:This is also an after picture. I love how the Basic H2 really shines the furniture, without leaving any film, fume or chemical behind. It doesn't just move the dust around, but actually takes it away and keeps it away longer.


Before I found Basic H2 to dust with, I had sworn I would never buy dark colored furniture again. But last summer we bought some new furniture for our family room. Here is a picture of one of the end tables. So easy to dust and keep the dust off. (as well as the little finger prints that tend to show up from my toddler:) I wasn't worried about the dust issue anymore. I was confident that Basic H2 would take care of it and it has.

I also had another cooking disaster on my stovetop recently. I always like to make the most of my disasters by demonstrating how well Scour Off works to clean things like this.
I really love this product and one little canister will last you 1-3 years!!! It is actually made of cherry pits so it smells almost good enough to eat....almost:) Here's the before:
And the after:
All I used was a little of the Scour Off with water on my washable microfiber sponge and it came off pretty easily. Again, without the harsh fumes or chemicals.
Last week I told you about our Green Getaway to Wisconsin. During that trip, we visited with my parents and my mom gave my toddler some pretty awesome no-roll type of crayons. Well, the day after we got home, we hadn't unpacked everything and he found the crayons in one of the bags we had left out. You can maybe guess what happened next... yep, our little artist was at it again. This time on the window sill, walls, floor and even the carpet! I don't have any pictures of the carpet because my husband cleaned it up before I even saw it. He used the degreaser bottle of the Basic H2 and it came right up! (and it was a deep purple color on our cream colored carpet!) But I do have some before and afters of the other areas:

Before:

and after I used the degreaser (1 1/4 tsp. of Basic H2 to 16 oz of water) of Basic H2 with my microfiber sponge

Here's a before of the wall:
and here is the after. I used the Basic H2 degreaser again with the microfiber sponge.
Here is a before of the window sill. (we still have plastic on the windows:)

and the after:
And here is the last one of the floor:

And after. Again, just using the Basic H2 degreaser and microfiber sponge. The sponge is washable, so you can get a lot of uses from it.


As you can see, I have been busy cleaning lately! I am happy to share my cleaning adventures and tips with you.

And if you are interested in any of these products, Shaklee has a wonderful free membership special running right now for Earth Day. It is the best I have seen so far. You can get a free lifetime Shaklee membership with only a $30 MN order! Members save 15% on all products always. And Shaklee always carries a 100% money back guarantee on all products. Since we switched brands to Shaklee cleaners, we have found that we really have saved money on these type of products because Shaklee cleaners are so concentrated. I really love using Shaklee cleaners, which is why I love sharing them with you. If you would like to try a sample of the Basic H2 that I mentioned, please let me know and I would be happy to send you one to you. If you are interested in a Shaklee membership, please remember to ask about my new member specials too:)

Thanks for reading and have a great and healthy week! Oh, and happy spring cleaning too! What spring cleaning projects are you working on? I would love to hear:)

Rebecca

Spring Cleaning

We have had some beautiful weather lately so my dear husband decided to wash my car for me. I don't have a good before (believe me, it really needed a wash!!) but here is the after picture. He used 1 tablespoon of Basic H2 to one gallon of water for the body of the car. He also used the Basic H2 window cleaner for the windows. (1-2 drops of Basic H2 to 16 oz. of water). Basic H2 is great for cleaning and repelling rain and dirt. Doesn't it look great?? Thanks, honey! :)

The nice weather has also reminded me that it is spring cleaning time! So, if you know me, you know that I am not a big fan of cleaning. Funny, since I sell cleaners, right? But I really just want things quick, easy and clean! I was inspired to finally tackle my shower the other day. It really needed it. Here is a before picture of the faucet.




You really can't see the tarnish in this picture. It was like this when we bought the house over 2 years ago and I had tried to clean it with some of my other cleaners seen here. To be honest, I had forgotten about it until the other day. It's funny when you look at something every day, you just get used to how it looks. I decided to finally tackle that project and try to get it clean over the weekend. I used Scour Off along with my microfiber sponge and followed up with the Basic H2 all purpose cleaner (1/4 tsp. of Basic H2 to 16 oz of water). It worked great! Here is the after picture:So easy to use and it didn't take me much time at all. I will continue to tackle more spring cleaning projects as the weather gets nicer. What spring cleaning adventures have you done so far?

March is National Nutrition Month!

I was pretty excited to learn that the American Dietetic Association has made March National Nutrition Month! I have been interested in nutrition and health in general for sometime now, esp. in the last few years since I became a mom. My education is in music therapy, so I do have a big interest in health and wellness. Nutrition plays a strong role in that.

This year's theme is "Eat right with color". I love that! Most people, myself included, don't get enough fruits and vegetables in their diet. I talked about some of this a few weeks ago when I posted about Heart Health.

Fruits and vegetables are packed with essential vitamins and nutrients. They can help to prevent diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. And I have found that it really doesn't require too much effort to sneak them into food. Try keeping a few bags of your family's favorite frozen veggies on hand and add them to soups, casseroles, pasta dishes, etc. You can do this even if the recipe doesn't call for them. I really love to cook but I really do not like to follow recipes. I tend to put dinners together with what I have on hand, so this tip works well in my house. I like to cook with different spices too, instead of salt. Spices add a lot of flavor without the salt. Here are a few pictures of some dinners I created recently with various things we had in the house. They aren't fancy but they tasted great and gave us some good color and nutrients:
This was a simple stir fry that I put together with chicken breast, brown rice, and whatever veggies I had on hand which were red onions, bell pepper, spinach and mushrooms. I just added some garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, a little low sodium soy sauce and worcestershire sauce and ginger powder. It turned out pretty good!
Here's another for some fish tacos I made. I cubed the salmon (a great source of Omega 3 fatty acid) and cooked it in a little extra virgin olive oil with some cumin, garlic powder, black pepper, and chili powder. Then I sauted some red onion and added tomato and fresh cilantro. (I don't always have fresh herbs in the house but I wanted it for another recipe so I bought it. They are pretty reasonable and add a ton of flavor to dishes and soups. )
Here is the end result of the above pic: salmon fish tacos! yum! I added some fresh spinach and brown rice, a little salsa and sour cream. They were pretty tasty and my 2 year old loved them!
Here is another where I sauted the veggies up and served them over baked salmon with whole wheat pasta. So good and lots of good color! :)


And one more with some asparagus with a vinegar base. My family loves asparagus. One of my favorite ways to cook it is to put it on a baking sheet with some EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and add a little course salt or other seasoning. I put it in the oven at 350 for about 15 min. It's an easy side that I can throw in with other things that I am baking.

I am always careful to really clean my fruit and vegetables well before eating or cooking with them. I used to only use water but I have learned that water doesn't always do the trick in removing any chemicals or wax from the produce. So now I use my Basic H2. Just one or two squirts from the window mix bottle (16 oz water, 1-2 drops of Basic H2) and some water cleans them well.

Some other good ways to add fruits and vegetables into your meals:

-add cut up veggies to sandwiches or wraps. I love wraps, so I often do this with beans and veggies and/or left over rice. It's an easy and quick lunch for me and my toddler.

-add veggies to pizza. I love to make my own but if you are in a rush, you can also add veggies to store bought. We got a Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza the other day and I added some spinach and tomatoes to it. Here's a pic:
Another idea:

- add fruit to yogurt, cereal, oatmeal, pancakes, etc. We made pancakes this morning and I added some mashed banana. Big hit in my house! I have also made them with blueberries. I have been eating a lot of oatmeal lately, and love to put a mashed banana or other fruit in that along with one of the natural sweeteners that I talked about here.

Supplement Your Diet

Since it is very difficult to get enough of the vitamins and minerals that we need for good health from our food, I love knowing that the quality supplements that I take and my husband takes help to "fill in the gap" in our nutrition. I also add protein powder to my oatmeal or shakes in the morning, which help to give me extra nutrients and energy to get through my day. These have been a real lifesaver since I am a busy mom with a 2 year old and 7 mo. old to take care of. My children also take Shaklee supplements and I am so thankful for our family's good health because of them! We are really rarely sick and my kids have never had ear infections. I will write more about children's health next week and share my kid's stories there.

Healthy Weight with FREE Shaklee Cinch!

One last thing to keep in mind when talking about good nutrition is maintaining a healthy weight. They really do go hand in hand. Shaklee has an awesome promotion running right now through the end of March where you can get a Cinch Sampler Pack for FREE!! Shaklee's Cinch Inch Loss Products are a natural and healthy way to lose the inches of fat while keeping the muscle. It's great for people who only have a few pounds to lose or others who have a few more to lose:)

This was a fun post for me to write since I love learning and sharing about nutrition. I hope you took some things from it to use for your own family! Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment with any nutrition tips that you have found work well for you and your family!

Have a healthy and colorful week! :)

Rebecca

clogged drain and tough stains - be gone!

I had a clogged bathroom sink recently. This picture really doesn't do justice to how bad the clog was.


I found a great recipe to unclog it that worked really well:

Recipe for a Shaklee Drain Cleaner

1 oz Basic H2

1 Tbsp Scour Off

1 Tbsp Dish Wash Liquid Concentrate

1 Gal Water

Boil 1 cup of water-add first 3 ingredients-pour contents into a clogged drain-follow up with approximately 1
gallon of water.

Boiling the water

After I added the 3 ingredients

after I poured the mixture down the drain

and after! no more clog! It worked really well and the best part was that the ingredients I used were all natural. There weren't any harsh chemicals or fumes. It was awesome and SO easy! Love that!

I also found another quick recipe for really, really tough stains. I haven't had a use for this recipe yet, so I don't have pictures. But here it is:

1/4 cup Fresh Liquid Laundry

1/4 cup Nature Bright Laundry Booster

Mix in a pail of hot water, add your soiled items and let soak up to 5 days!

I have heard that this works REALLY well and completely safe even for fabrics which are not supposed to be washed like a wedding gown.

I hope these easy and completely safe household tips are helpful to you! Thanks for reading!

Oh, and please stop by my friend Rebecca's Blog for your chance to win FREE Basic H2 - enough to mix one bottle of all purpose cleaner and one bottle of window/glass cleaner! It's easy to enter! :)

Thanks and have a great and healthy week!

Rebecca